


A Distant Star

by twobirdsonesong



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Established Relationship, M/M, Prompt Fill, RPF, Songfic, Touring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the last night of the tour, Darren plays a song for one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Distant Star

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.  
> It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.  
> Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.  
> ― Haruki Murakami, “South of the Border, West of the Sun”

_Another summer day / has come and gone away / in Paris or Rome / but I wanna go home_

 

Darren loves this part of the set, just him and his guitar, his music.  The band is great, more than fantastic, but there’s something about the ease of his fingers, his strings, and his voice.  It reminds him, just a little, of the old days when he had nothing to prove and no one to impress.  When anything and everything he did affected him and him alone.  Some days, those rare days his schedule is free and he’s left with too much to think about and enough time to do it, he misses that simplicity.

 

He settles on the stool in the center of the stage, trying to block out the high, excited hum of the crowd stretched out dark and restless in front of him.  He’d planned out something to say about this one, thought that he should, but the few sentences he’d strung together earlier that morning slip away from him, just as he knew they would.

 

_May be surrounded by / a million people I / still feel all alone / I just wanna go home / Oh, I miss you, you know_

 

“So,” Darren begins, and the crowd quiets to hear him. “I hate to like, bring the whole vibe of this place down, because you guys have been awesome, and this is, as you know, the last show, but this is a song I’ve been waiting to play since the beginning of this thing.  So I hope you’ll all bear with me on this one.  Sorry if this bums you out, and feel free to go refill your drinks or take a bathroom break, but this one’s for me.”  Darren pauses, shrugs.  “Mostly.”

 

He strums a few chords, making sure everything is as in tune as it’s going to be.  If there’s one song he doesn’t want sounding a little off tonight, it’s this one.  He thinks about getting his phone out, even reaches to his back pocket for it, but he figures there will be better video of it up before he even leaves the stage.

 

_My words were cold and flat / and you deserve more than that_

 

“I don’t even need to read the lyrics for this one, you guys,” he says and the audience laughs, as expected.  So does he, but it’s a different kind of laugh and it falls like ash from his lips.

 

Darren settles into it by the first few lines, keeping his eyes low, almost closed.  The person he most wants to see isn’t in the crowd that night, but that’s okay.  It has to be.  It’s been that way the whole tour.  One more night isn’t going to change anything.

 

_I’m just too far from where you are / I wanna come home_

 

Of all the things he’s going to miss – his buddies, the shows, the shitty food, even the cramped confinement of the bus – he thinks it might be this that he’ll miss the most.  These moments, somehow made private by the single light and the way the crowd goes quiet, are the ones he replays at night, staring at the low ceiling of the bunk above him.   He’s not going to have the time for this come fall, when the cogs of his other life start turning again.

 

He can’t tell how the audience is reacting to this number.  He almost doesn’t care.  He heard the swell of voices when the crowd first recognized the song, the initial buzz and excitement over a song he’d never played for people before, but it all faded out to the soft background noise he’d become so accustomed to.  All he hears now is his own voice and the plaintive melody twining through the air.  Darren thinks _he’s_ hearing it too, somehow.

 

_And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life / it’s like I just stepped outside / when everything was going right_

 

***

 

There’s a car waiting for Darren at the airport in Los Angeles, which is a relief, even if he doesn’t remember scheduling one.  He’s taken to a car with darkened windows and he frowns at it, but shrugs and throws his stuff into back without protest.  It’s late and he’s too tired and homesick to complain about anything right now.

 

He slides into the backseat and hates how the door gets closed for him.  He sighs and slouches against the leather seats.  It takes him a slow, stupid second to register that there’s someone else in the car.

 

_And I know just why you could not / come along with me_

 

Chris is looking at him from the far side of the backseat, not quite smiling.

 

“Hi.”

 

Chris looks the same, except he doesn’t.  There are a few more freckles across his cheeks and something in his eyes that says more than two months have passed.

 

“Hi.”  Darren’s throat feels too tight for words or air.  He knows, somehow, that Chris _heard_ , that he saw.

 

Chris is dressed down, just jeans and a t-shirt, and his palms are pressed flat to his thighs.

 

“I missed you,” Chris says, softly, but it carries.

 

“I know.”  Darren takes a breath and can smell Chris’ cologne, even though it’s the middle of the night.

 

Chris shifts almost imperceptibly, clothes rustling against the smooth seat.  His hand ends up on the seat between them, palm up.  Darren closes his eyes, breathes, and links their fingers together.  Whatever’s changed, Chris’ hand still fits in his.

 

_I’ll be home tonight / I’m coming back home_

 


End file.
